A ‘cloud of dust’ and a promise
Taranaki builder Craig Eaton spent time he didn't have fighting a losing battle. A year after his death his family tell his story to Jane Matthews.
The final words shared between a terminally ill Taranaki man and his eldest daughter weren’t those of love – they were talk of pain and promises.
Yesterday marked exactly one year since Craig Eaton died after months battling mesothelioma, an aggressive form of cancer directly linked to asbestos.
As each breath became more laboured, the father-of-three became even more obsessed about the moment he believed was his death sentence.
It was the moment he breathed in a ‘‘cloud of dust’’, which he was convinced was asbestos, while removing an air conditioning unit at Port Taranaki.
In the days before his death, Craig made his eldest daughter Rebecca, 28, promise she would tell the story of his final months, all consumed by his illness and an employer he believed abandoned him when he needed it most.
‘‘It was one of the last things he was thinking about,’’ Rebecca says of her father, who was just 52 when he died.
‘‘He deserved so much more.’’ Ministry of Health figures show around 100 New Zealanders have died of mesothelioma every year over the past 10 years.
In Taranaki, it jumps between one and two people a year. In 2018, Craig was one.
He left behind Lianne, his wife of 30 years, and their three daughters: Rebecca, Courtney, 25, and Olivia, 21.
Meeting on their first day at Spotswood College, he and Lianne became good friends, then teenage sweethearts.
The pair were engaged by 19, married at 21, and had their daughters in the decade that followed.
‘‘Part of me always wondered why we did everything so young and crammed in everything. It’s like, thank goodness we did,’’ Lianne says.
Craig was born to be a dad. He was always there for running trainings, surf lifesaving competitions, ballet, or anything his daughters did. He’d be there to do their hair and make up if he had to, too.
‘‘He always said his greatest achievement was his girls,’’ Lianne says.
‘‘He was as good of a mum as he was a dad.’’
Port Taranaki say Craig was a ‘‘valued member’’ of their company, but the Eatons say he wasn’t treated that way when he began to die.
They say he didn’t feel the port acknowledged he could have contracted the deadly disease while working as a builder for them, sweeping him under the carpet instead.
A Port Taranaki asbestos location register, shared with Worksafe in April 2018, highlighted
44 port-owned facilities and buildings of interest.
Port Taranaki has been cleared by Worksafe, which started investigating when Craig was diagnosed.
Mesothelioma can form from one single asbestos fibre and in Craig’s 35 years in his role as a ‘chippy’, he had the chance of being exposed to asbestos many times.
There is no way of isolating the moment mesothelioma starts to form.
But Craig remembered one definite moment while working for the port.
He recalled a day in the early
2000s when ‘‘a cloud of dust’’, which he believed was asbestos, fell on to his face.
He told the WorkSafe interviewer that he and fellow builder Craig Jacob were doing renovations to the boardroom when this happened and that they filed an incident report.
Jacob, who stopped working at the port after a motorbike crash in 2008, remembers the asbestos – and filling out the form – clear as day.
He’s not sure of the year but said the pair were standing outside the boardroom on stools attempting to remove an airconditioning unit.
When they pulled it out a heap of dust came out, Jacob, 55, says.
‘‘I said, f..k that’s asbestos.’’ Jacob says they were always encouraged to fill out incident forms and it was a ‘‘sackable offence’’ if they didn’t, so went straight to their supervisor, the late Stuart Peacock.
Jacob remembers the three of them standing around filling out the form, and says he knew it would have been filed because Peacock was that sort of ‘‘bloke’’.
Following Craig’s diagnosis, the Eatons tried to get a hold of the incident form after speaking to an asbestos lawyer in Australia. They were considering a private suit and having forms was ‘‘paramount’’.
But, the form could not be located when the family asked for it and others, they say.
Worksafe investigation findings, dated February 2, 2018, also state: ‘‘This form allegedly cannot be found by Port Taranaki.’’
‘‘Whatever the case is, it’s not good enough,’’ Rebecca says.
This means a private law suit from the family is unlikely.
Port Taranaki chief executive Guy Roper declined requests for a face-to-face interview or a phone conversation. But he provided emailed statements.
In the statement, Roper did not respond to questions about the location of Craig’s incident forms.
When diagnosed, Craig got in touch with Jacob, warning him that he believed the day with the ‘‘cloud of dust’’ was when he contracted the deadly disease.
Craig told Jacob that WorkSafe or the port may be in touch.
‘‘But I’ve heard from no-one, not a thing,’’ Jacob says.
He says being uncertain of his future is a ‘‘weird feeling’’.
‘‘It’s hard knowing that you were there with it.’’
Similar to Jacob, the Eatons have their concerns about the future.
Lianne used to wash Craig’s work overalls, which he’d bring home, and she’s read about Deanna Trevarthen, 45, who contracted mesothelioma from hugging her father when he came home from work.
Lianne tries not to think about the fact she or her daughters may have been exposed to asbestos, but it worries her – just like carrying on without Craig does.
Before he was diagnosed, celebrations were in order for the close family. Lianne had just beaten breast cancer so the Eatons were looking forward to 2017.
‘‘We were saying ‘it’s our year, it’s going to be great,’’ Rebecca says.
Until Craig found himself with a wheezy cough.
He was thrown between tests and X-rays and a mass was found in his chest.
‘‘I just said ‘not again’,’’ Rebecca says.
The family were originally told Craig had thymic cancer and treatment began, which was refreshing because they knew it could prolong his life.
It wasn’t until August, when a
private doctor took a further look at pieces of the mass, that it was discovered Craig had been misdiagnosed; it was a completely different ‘‘beast’’ – the mass in his right lung was mesothelioma.
Once the cancer is discovered, patients are usually given a life expectancy of about 12 months, which the family had to come to terms with.
‘‘I was still really hopeful he’d become one of the ones who would survive with cancer,’’ Rebecca says.
In his final weeks, Craig’s kidneys and pancreas were affected by his illness and its treatment. He didn’t have much energy and breathing was difficult.
He spent 11 days in Taranaki Base Hospital, surrounded by friends and family, before he died.
Those final days weren’t solely spent making the memories as they should have been, they were taken over by Craig’s obsession to have his story told of the pain he felt.
To understand his obsession, you have to go back 23 years to when Craig started at Port Taranaki as a maintenance man.
The port was his employer for longer than any other and during his time he worked across various port-owned buildings.
The 44 port-owned facilities noted in the asbestos location register that was shared with Worksafe in April 2018 were the majority of the port’s buildings, and included the rope shed where Craig worked for his last decade.
Craig told Worksafe when he worked in the rope shed if a container was dropped nearby he could see dust falling from the asbestos-made super six sheeting roof.
In investigation notes, released under the Official Information Act, Craig said he was told this was not the ‘‘bad asbestos’’.
The family says the port hurt them deeply when it wouldn’t acknowledge Craig’s death could have been a result of working on the site, in and near those 44 buildings. Rebecca says her father expected more from the company he poured decades of his life into.
Craig couldn’t comprehend how he was being treated and he wanted acknowledgement. But he didn’t get it, according to his daughter.
‘‘He had so little energy, and so little time and it took up so much [of that]. That added so significantly to his death, his pain,’’ Rebecca says.
‘‘He just couldn’t let it go.’’
The family doesn’t remember a card, or any form of condolences from the port following Craig’s death.
Roper, of Port Taranaki, says the Eatons had said they did not want to talk to anyone at Craig’s funeral, so the organisation respected that.
But the family believe the port made things difficult throughout Craig’s illness, even for Worksafe.
Worksafe investigation notes show Port Taranaki originally wouldn’t give Worksafe Craig’s phone number, couldn’t provide any incident forms of Craig’s, despite him often filing them, and didn’t respond to Worksafe in time, landing themselves with a breach.
The port also continuously asked if the case was ‘closed’.
In an emailed statement, Roper said the WorkSafe investigation was concluded earlier this year and the organisation is ‘‘satisfied with our processes and the measures taken’’.
The WorkSafe investigation states it found the port had some ‘‘very clear questions to answer with regard to their knowledge and management and known asbestos’’.
At the time it didn’t think the port had provided a safe working environment for staff and or the right training to protect them from risks to their health and safety.
The port also didn’t put health monitoring in place until 18 months before the report from February 2018, despite there being a wealth of information regarding the dangers of asbestos.
Roper did not answer questions about asbestos management plans and health monitoring, but did email his condolences.
‘‘Craig Eaton was a valued member of the Port Taranaki team and his loss was felt deeply across the company,’’ the email read. ‘‘Our thoughts are with his family and friends, including his colleagues, with the anniversary of his passing approaching.’’
But, the time had passed for such condolences.
‘‘It’s far too late for Dad,’’ Rebecca says. Today, Craig inspires his daughters to carry on through the promises he made.
Just months after his death international beach sprint champ Olivia, 21, defended her title in the World Surf Life Saving Championships in his honour.
He encouraged her to move to the Gold Coast to chase her dream a few years ago, and she hasn’t stopped.
‘‘If he could be there watching her somehow, he’d make it happen,’’ Rebecca says.
Courtney, 25, is a nurse and moved home from Auckland to care for Craig when he was ill.
He told her to chase her career, and she’s since moved into the Intensive Care Unit in New Plymouth, where he spent his final days.
Rebecca, a lawyer, has been working to tell her dad’s story and learning how to live without him, but ‘‘for him and with him’’.
‘‘Dad didn’t give everything up for our lives to stop now.’’